A farmer in Khargone district has started a hi-tech agricultural equipment centre to provide automated machinery and implements for rent on hourly basis to other farmers.

A farmer in Khargone district has started a hi-tech agricultural equipment centre to provide automated machinery and implements for rent on hourly basis to other farmers.

The hi-tech custom hiring centre project was conceived by the state government, which has provided a subsidy for purchase of equipment. This centre, which has come up in Bedia village in Khargone district, is the first such initiative in Madhya Pradesh. The center has 23 types of equipment including tractors, automated pesticide sprayer, mechanized plough, and harvester. Singh has also got trained operators and drivers to carry out the operations.

“The hi-tech equipment not only saves money but also precious time that can be used by the farmers in other productive work,” says Samar Singh, who has been farming in village Bagda near Bedia for last many decades.

“For instance, November is the harvesting season for cotton and chilli, while it is also the time to sow wheat. So, a farmer benefits from timely harvesting and timely sowing of crops while the cost of machinery is more or less the same as the manual labour cost,” he said. A harvester has the capacity to harvest four acres of soybean or other similar crop in one hour.

Singh decided to set up the centre after the state government came up with a subsidy scheme to promote the use of modern farming techniques. “In the past we have borrowed tractors and also given tractors to other farmers on regular basis. For a farmer to buy all the machinery is always going to be difficult as and most of the machines are very expensive,” he said.

The equipment caters to all the needs of farmer beginning from primary tillage, sowing to spraying of pesticides and harvesting of the crop.